游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

电子游戏瘾性的真正问题所在

发布时间:2013-08-20 15:20:53 Tags:,,,,

作者:Josh Bycer

昨天,当我随便转着电视频道时,突然看到Katie Couric关于电子游戏瘾性的长达1个小时的访谈节目。与大多数这类性质的节目一样,会有一些嘉宾和“专家”在此分享自己关于电子游戏为何应该遭受谴责的观点。

但是在观看期间我却注意到一些逻辑谬论以及主要的问题,即公众并未真正理解游戏产业中存在什么问题。

游戏市场的概括:

让我们开始着眼于电子游戏成瘾问题是如何进入公共领域。显然,电子游戏的出现已经有很长一段时间,但是直到最近10年它才成为了众人抗议的焦点。除了那些已经发生的悲剧外,造成这一问题的还有一个核心原因:公众。

在过去十年里,电子游戏逐渐从一种利基体验发展成一大主流平台,即像今天的《使命的召唤》,《魔兽世界》等等游戏。就像我们在GameWisdom上反复说到的,游戏设计在过去几年里不断趋于流线型,而主要原因与公众对于电子游戏的普遍接受度息息相关。

Crusaderkings2steam(from game-wisdom)

Crusaderkings2steam(from game-wisdom)

并不是说像你我这样的粉丝已经完全消失了,而是我们逐渐被多数一般群众给淹没了:大学生成为了如今的发行商的主要目标对象。顺便一提的是,这也是为何许多早前的玩家开始转向独立市场去寻求更具针对性的游戏设计(游戏邦注:而非流线型游戏)的主要原因。

当发行商们看到诸如《光晕》,《使命的召唤》这类型游戏的销量时,他们肯定也想进行尝试并创造出类似的成功。这就像我们现在所看到的,多人竞技游戏(MOBA)市场便紧跟着《英雄联盟》和《DOTA2》的发展。

我们曾提到,目标用户的改变也影响着游戏设计。就像现在很多游戏设计都是基于如何吸引玩家的注意,即带有成就,在线游戏以及微交易等机制。

除了这些机制,游戏也为了吸引更多人的注意而变得更加简单。

当你将易用性与机制结合在一起而推动人们持续游戏时,你便创造了一个上瘾的组合,而这比起新闻广播员和精神病学家所认为的电子游戏问题还要危险。

保持游戏足够活跃:

着眼于过去十年的游戏开发,暴力类电子游戏并不是主要问题,带有瘾性的游戏才是问题所在。即那些通过成就,游戏内部奖励等等将游戏留在游戏中的游戏。

许多免费游戏和社交游戏都是围绕着这点进行设计:使用肤浅的奖励和成就去吸引玩家不断游戏与花钱。《使命的召唤》便成为了暴力类电子游戏讨论的典型代表,它也是具有瘾性的游戏的经典案例。

Farmvill2kotaku(from game-wisdom)

Farmvill2kotaku(from game-wisdom)

很多专家便在这方面有了误解,认为《使命的召唤》并不是因为是一款暴力游戏才受欢迎,而是因为它是基于特殊的心理动机进行设计,即为了不断提升重玩价值并为开发者创造更多利益。今天的《使命的召唤》系列倾向于多人游戏,本身就具有极高的重玩价值,并且人类玩家总是能够比AI创造出更多挑战。

《使命的召唤》的元游戏呈献给玩家各种新道具和成就等,设计师希望一次带给玩家一种前进感和成就感,从而推动他们继续留在游戏中。这与我们在MMO游戏中所看到的“游戏,获得奖励,更频繁地游戏”的循环行为是相同的,这也是人们将电子游戏称为一种瘾性的主要例子。

我认为因为电子游戏提供了一种“虚拟的逃脱”方法而将其归为一种瘾性是不合理的。

它们的确是围绕着如何带给玩家更好的感受(即利用成就系统)进行设计,但这并不表示将玩家推向一个虚拟的世界。

当赌徒在赌场花了好几个小时去玩老虎机时,他们并未被带到一个魔术般的赌博世界。

带给玩家更好的感受也是电子游戏强大的前进感的一大元素:角色一开始较为虚弱,但通过时间的发展(或金钱的使用)将变得更加强大。能够看到并感受到自己现在所处的位置(而不是之前所处场景)将能更有效地推动玩家继续前进并变得更加强大。

进程的另一面便是成就理念,这也是确保玩家继续游戏的一大动机。当玩家在《使命的召唤》或《魔兽世界》中收集了许多武器,成就时,他便更加难以停止游戏,因为这便意味着他需要放弃所有的这些武器。反过来游戏也能更轻松地向这些玩家出售可下载内容和微交易产品,。

这也是“鲸鱼玩家”的来源。他们到达了一个极高的游戏境界,即完全沉浸于其中,愿意购买一切内容而继续享受游戏的乐趣。

现在这里存在一个问题:为什么人们专注于暴力而不是瘾性?我不知道具体原因,但是我认为如果哪天有人提出镇压电子游戏,那一定是因为让人上瘾的设计。这与赌场产业所面临的情况是一样的,我敢打赌很多人都不想看到这种情况。

最后,我想回到节目中所讨论的电子游戏和瘾性的主要问题中。

问题的归纳:

在节目中,不管何时当人们谈到暴力或让人上瘾的电子游戏时,他们通常都会使用“电子游戏”这一词去指代所有内容。

这是绝对的用词不当,即这样会将所有内容都集中于同一种定义,而问题就变成电子游戏与所有药物一样了。当你着眼于像可卡因和甲安菲他明等药物时,他们所造成的症状以及所含有的成份基本上是相同的。就像500个服用了甲安菲他明的人将出现相同的症状。

但是将电子游戏当成一个整体并认为它们就是暴力或瘾性却是不正确的。在节目上,他们讨论着电子游戏的上瘾特性,但却只提到了《使命的召唤》和《光晕》。但电子游戏产业却不只如此,这里有无数的独立开发者在脱离AAA设计而创造着让人惊艳的作品。

Halo4GameInformer(from game-wisdom)

Halo4GameInformer(from game-wisdom)

当一个专家在阐述游戏暴力问题时说到自己“接触了游戏产业中的所有人”时,我便知道他在撒谎。

我敢打赌他肯定从未接触过任何独立开发者,因为这些开发者在创造游戏时便未曾使用过暴力元素。

而将少数的一些游戏当成是整个产业的代表也意味着公众只知道这些游戏,对除它们之外的整个游戏产业并不了解。

最后,我们可以肯定拥有最佳设计的游戏都具有极高的用户粘性,很难被推倒。本篇文章的意义便是明确围绕着那些推动玩家继续游戏并花钱的游戏,而不管这么做是否正确。

电子游戏和瘾性肯定存在一定的问题,但却不是关于暴力。我很厌烦那些想要帮助孩子或更深刻理解这个产业但最终却朝着错误的方向越走越远的人。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The Real Issue of Video Game Addiction

By Josh Bycer

In a moment of serendipity I was flipping through the channels yesterday when I came across Katie Couric’s talk show which was doing an hour long special on video game addiction. Like most shows of this nature, there were a few guests to show the consequence and “experts” giving their opinions as to why video games were to blame.

However, as I watched it, there were some logical fallacies at work and the major issue is that the general public doesn’t understand what the problem is in the game industry.

The Generalizing of the Game Market:

Let’s start with looking at how issues of video game addiction have entered the general public. Obviously, video games have been around for much longer but it hasn’t become such an outcry until this last decade. Besides the tragedies that have happened there is one reason at the center of this problem: the general public.

Video games moved away from being a niche experience to a mainstream platform in the last decade, with games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and others. As we’ve talked about countless times on Game-Wisdom, game design has become more streamlined over the years and the reason has to do with the general acceptance of video games.

It’s not that fans like you and me have disappeared, but that we’ve been drowned out by the general majority: the college demographic that major publishers are now aiming for. Incidentally, this is why so many older gamers have moved to the Indie market to get more specific game designs and not the mainstream.

When publishers see the sales numbers of games like Halo, Call of Duty and so on, of course they’re going to try and make a game similar to copy their success. It’s the same thing that we’re seeing now with the MOBA market following the rise of League of Legends and DOTA 2.

The change in demographic as we mentioned has also changed game design. Games have been designed around hooking players more with mechanics like achievements, online play and micro transactions to name a few.

Besides those mechanics, games have gotten generally easier and less complex to appeal to more people.

When you combine accessibility with mechanics designed to keep people playing, you have an addictive concoction, which is a far greater danger compared to what newscasters and psychiatrists think is the problem with video games.

Keeping The Game Alive:

Looking at the development of game design over the last decade, it isn’t violent video games that are the main problem, but games designed with addictive qualities. Here, games are built towards keeping people playing with achievements, in-game rewards and capitalizing on that.

A large number of Free-To-Play and social games have been designed with just that in mind: Tempting people with superficial awards and achievements for their continued playtime and payment. Call of Duty which has become the poster child for the violent video game argument, is also a strong case for the addicting qualities of game.

This is where I feel that a lot of experts get it wrong, that Call of Duty isn’t popular because it is a violent game, but because it was built for replayability and continued profit for the developers using specific psychological motivators. The Call of Duty series today is built towards multiplayer which in of itself is highly replayable, as human players will always offer more challenges than an AI.

Call of Duty’s meta-game of unlocking new items, dog-tags, achievements and so on, was explicitly designed to give gamers a sense of progress and achievement to keep them playing. It’s that same circle of behavior of “play, get rewarded and play some more” that we see in MMO titles which was the first major case of people calling video games an addiction.

The debate if video games are addicting because they provide a “virtual escape,” I feel is BS.

They are definitely designed to make people feel good which is where the whole achievement system comes into play, but it’s not about pulling the player into a virtual world.

When gamblers spend hours at the casino pulling slot machines, they’re not taken to a magical gambling world.

Making people feel good is also a major element of the power progression in video games: where characters start out weak and through time (or money spent,) grow more powerful. Being able to see and feel where they are now, compared to where they were, helps motivate players to keep going and get more powerful.

The other side of progression is the concept of investment which is a powerful motivator to keep people playing. When someone has gathered a huge amount of weapons, achievements and so on in Call of Duty or World of Warcraft, it makes it that much harder to stop playing as it means giving all that up. This in turn makes it easier to sell those people DLC and micro transactions as the saying goes: ” in for a penny, in for a pound.”

This is also where the concept of “whales” or the minority of social and free-to-play gamers who spend the most money come from. They reach a point of being so invested in the game that they will buy everything available to keep enjoying it.

Now, here’s a question: Why are people focusing on violence and not addiction? I don’t have a concrete reason why, but if I were to guess, it would be that if video games were cracked down on due to addictive designs. Then the same could be said about much of the casino industry and I bet that there are a lot of people who don’t want that.

Lastly, I want to turn to one major issue I have with the show’s discussion on video games and addiction.

Generalizing the Problem:

On the show, whenever anyone talked about having a problem with a violent or addictive video game, instead of mentioning the game specifically they used the term “video games” for everything.

This was a major misnomer as they were lumping everything together under one definition and the problem has to do with comparing video games to drugs. When you look at drugs like cocaine and meth, their symptoms and ingredients are basically the same. 500 people who do meth will most likely have the same symptoms.

However, lumping video games as a whole together and saying that they are violent or addictive isn’t right. On the show, they talked about the addicting qualities of video games, but only brought up Call of Duty and Halo. But the video game industry is much more than that, with hundreds of indie developers making amazing titles away from the AAA design.

When one expert said that he “reached out to everyone in the game industry” about the issue of game violence, I knew he was lying.

I’m more than willing to bet that he never contacted any indie developers as there are games that were made without using violence.

Once again, we have a few games that are the popular majority being viewed as all encompassing of the industry. This unfortunately means that the general public only knows about those games and nothing else.

One last thing, we can certainly debate that the best designed games are very engaging and hard to put down. The point of this post is about games that are explicitly designed to motivate people to continue playing and spending money and whether or not that is good. I will be returning to the difference with great games at a later time.

There is definitely an issue with video games and addiction, but it’s not about violence anymore. And I hate to see people wanting to help their children or understand the industry more, but looking in the wrong direction.

And if you know of any psychologists or people who study either video games or addiction and would like to appear on the cast to discuss this, please let me know via email from our front page under submissions wanted.(source:game-wisdom)


上一篇:

下一篇: